Looking Forward
by moreofaguestage
Summary: In the midst of a party, Sirius tells Lily something that forces her to start thinking about the future. Lily/James 7th Year.


Lily peered out of her bedroom window and onto the quiet street outside. James, her boyfriend of about two weeks was supposed to be arriving in only a few minutes. Lily was desperate for his arrival if only for the temporary distraction. Petunia was downstairs with her mother planning her wedding and had already made it perfectly clear at the beginning of her Christmas holidays that Lily was not to interfere. This had been an ongoing argument and made the past week drag on, her older sister throwing her pointed looks and muttered insults whenever they were in the same room.

Lily was going with James to a rather large party Sirius was throwing in honour of his new flat. This was the first time her and James had spent any time together outside of Hogwarts and she couldn't decide if she was more excited or nervous, having spent far too much time that afternoon fiddling with her hair and deciding which pair of jeans made her bum look best than she was willing to admit

A knock at the door signaled James's arrival and Lily dashed downstairs, jumping the last few stairs and landing behind her father as he opened the door.

"Hi, Mr Evans" James said politely, holding his hand out for Mr. Evans to shake.

Mr Evans took it and welcomed James inside where he spotted Lily and gave a rather awkward wave, unwilling to show any kind of affection so close to her father.

"So you two, what's the plan for tonight?" Mr Evans asked.

"Oh uh, we're going to my friend's flatwarming, sir" James said, stammering slightly.

"It's Sirius's, Dad, I told you about him" Lily added. Her Dad wasn't usually one to intimidate the boys Lily or Petunia brought home but she didn't want to give him any reason to mistrust James, for reasons she wasn't quite ready to admit yet she really wanted her Dad to like this one.

"Right, right well, I want you home before Two, Lil, okay." He paused for a second, "how are you two getting there?"

"We're apparating, silly" Lily said, pulling on her coat and gloves.

"Oh yes, of course" Mr Evans replied, pretending he understood this concept completely.

Lily grabbed her bag, kissed her father goodbye, yelled to her mother that she was leaving and directed James out of the door into the cold January night.

She stopped and turned to James, actually looking at him for the first time since he arrived.

"Hey" She said quietly, linking her fingers with his

He tipped her chin up and kissed her softly. Lily's stomach gave a pleasant jolt and kissed him back.

"Hey," he said back, grinning slightly.

"I missed you," Lily said and she meant it entirely. If someone had told her this time last year that she would be going on a date with James Potter to a party at Sirius Black's house she would have had them committed but in this moment she couldn't think of a place she'd rather be.

"I missed you too" James replied. "We should get a move on though, Sirius started celebrating before dinner and well, he's not one to pace himself, is he?"

Lily laughed in agreement, took James's hand and with a small pop they left the quiet street and found themselves in the hallway of Sirius's building, loud music emanating from the flat across from them. James opened up the door and Lily was hit by a wave of music, body heat and general debauchery. Marlene McKinnon was already snogging Benjy Fenwick in the corner, Peter was walking around with the largest bottle of firewhiskey she had ever seen and Dorcas was chugging a mug of beer while a crowd cheered.

Sirius stumbled over and exclaimed, "Prongsie, where'd you go? You missed Davey taking out the table with his forehead!"

"Had to grab Lily, mate" he said, gesturing to his girlfriend

"Hey Sirius," Lily said brightly, "I got you something, flatwarming present" she reached into her bag and pulled out a bottle of muggle whiskey, "it's muggle stuff, but it does the same job"

Sirius enveloped the red head into a huge bear hug, "muggle piss! Jamesie look, your girl got me muggle booze!"

Sirius opened the bottle and took a large swig then offered the bottle to James and Lily. James took it appreciatively but Lily refused, reminding the two she still had to apparate back home.

James and Lily shed their cloaks and moved further into the party. Unsurprisingly most of their fellow seventh years Gryffindors were there, along with a smattering of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws but as Lily looked around she noticed that she did not know a large amount of those gathered.

"How does Sirius know this many people?" She asked James, leaning back on the kitchen counter.

"It's Sirius, he sort of collects friends. "Over there are his neighbours," he said pointing to a particularly loud group of people taking shots of firewhiskey "and those guys we met last night at the Leaky Cauldron and...actually, I don't know a lot of these people either. It's fine though, it's just Sirius's way, he loves everyone."

Soon the couple was separated as Lily was dragged into the bathroom to dissect Marlene's kiss with Benjy and James was pulled into a rather complex game Peter and Remus had created. The party lasted long into the night and eventually, Lily found herself outside on the fire escape with Sirius.

"Smoke?" Lily offered him a battered pack of cigarettes

"You smoke, Evans?"

"Yea, picked it up from a muggle bloke I dated for a couple of weeks summer before last, plus everyone does where I live anyway."

"Never took you for someone so interesting"

Lily inhaled and looked out on London. She had only visited a handful of time with her parents and had never really realized how large or beautiful it was.

"So you and Prongs, eh?" Sirius said

"Well, yea but isn't that a bit obvious?" Lily said.

Sirius flicked the butt of his cigarette off the side of the fire escape and turned to Lily.

"He loves you" Sirius said bluntly.

"I...what? He hasn't said that yet"

"Yea, well, I guess he's trying to play it cool isn't he. Doesn't want to scare you away and what not."

Lily was speechless, a small part of her was angry that Sirius was butting in but she knew that was unfair. He was probably just looking out for his best friend. A larger part of her, the part that wasn't ready to think about why it was so important to her for her Dad to like James, lit up...he loved her? The thought sent a warm, glowing kind of feeling right through her body.

"I, I love him too" Lily said this without thinking but all of a sudden she knew it was true.

"Well, good, "Sirius replied looking a little taken aback. Lily could tell he was expecting a different answer. "You should tell him that though, he's too much of a pansy to come out with it first."

Lily didn't respond, a dreamy, stunned look had spread over her face. She was in love with James Potter.

"Sirius!" Someone yelled from inside, "The record player's skipping!"

Sirius sighed and pulled himself back through the window, leaving Lily to her thoughts. A few minutes later James climbed out, joining her on the small fire escape.

"I've been looking all over for you, Lils! How come you're out here? It's freezing!"

Lily didn't respond, instead she leaned over and kissed him, pulling James's face down to meet hers and running her fingers through his messy black hair.

Finally, they broke apart and Lily rested her forehead on James's.

"I love you, James." She said this softly but firmly as if trying to make sure he understood just how deeply she meant it.

James didn't reply immediately and the delay made Lily's face drop, realizing all at once that believing a piss drunk Sirius wasn't the smartest idea she'd ever had and that saying 'I love you' after having only really started dating a few days before the end of term made her seem a bit crazy and desperate.

Finally, James opened his mouth and whispered, "really?"

Lily looked up and was simply floored by the amount of emotion showing through his expression. She raised her hand up to his face and stroked his cheek as if to try and touch the feelings that were obviously coursing through him at that moment.

"Yea, yea I do" Lily whispered, staring back at him with what she hoped was a similar expression.

"I love you too, Lily." James whispered very quietly but with a kind of strength that Lily had never heard from him before.

A gust of wind rushed past the young couple and broke the stillness. Lily shivered and James motioned to go back inside where the party was dying down. They climbed through and Lily glanced at her watch, noting she needed to be home soon.

"Hey, I'm gonna go say bye to Sirius and head out, okay?" James nodded and made his way over to Remus who was vanishing some empty beer bottles.

Sirius was in the kitchen, attempting to find something edible.

"Hey! I'm gonna head home, but i'll see ya soon, yea?"

Sirius glanced up from the cupboard, a loaf of bread in hand and a large chunk of it is his mouth. She hugged before he could reply.

"Oh, and I told James," she added, almost as an afterthought.

"Oh god, I didn't mean now! Christ, Lily now he's gonna go all soft and gushy and I'll have to listen to him when you bugger off back to your parents."

Lily rolled her eyes, waved bye to Sirius who had resumed his attack on the loaf of bread and made her way back to her boyfriend.

"Come visit me tomorrow?" She asked James, not wanting to say goodbye. "I'll show you how the muggles live."

"Yea alright," James said, smiling down at Lily.

She kissed him goodbye, walked out the door and disapparated.

Lily returned home and quietly made her way upstairs, careful not to wake anyone. She undressed quickly, pulled on her pajamas and curled up under the blankets. She had expected her mind to be whirring, playing the events of the night over and trying to come to terms with this new information but instead a wonderful calm had descended over her and all she could do was smile. It no longer seemed important that 6th year Lily would have slapped her silly for loving James or that her friends still thought she needed her head checked or even that they had both changed and matured significantly in recent months. What mattered, Lily thought as she closed her eyes, was the future and their lives beyond Hogwarts because no matter what happened she knew James would be there.


End file.
